(Reuters) – The United States is taking steps to impose visa restrictions on some Hondurans for “fomenting violence,” a U.S. official said on Tuesday, after ruling party lawmakers named a new attorney general last month while sidestepping the full Congress.
In a post on social media, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller accused the unnamed individuals targeted with the visa curbs of supporting the “irregular and unprecedented” designation of the nation’s new top prosecutor along with other officials.
Miller said the controversial move “undermined democracy and the rule of law” in the Central American country.
Ruling party lawmakers from President Xiomara Castro’s Libre party muscled through the new picks in a committee vote on Nov. 1, instead of attempting to confirm them in a vote of the entire opposition-controlled Congress.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry; Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Editing by David Alire Garcia)
